WO 2013/001976 (PTD 1) discloses an air conditioning apparatus capable of performing heating/defrosting operation, in which a refrigerant delivered from an indoor heat exchanger to an outdoor heat exchanger is evaporated, while an arbitrary heat exchange path is defrosted, by means of a defrosting flow path mechanism.
In the heating/defrosting operation, first, the refrigerant delivered from the indoor heat exchanger to the outdoor heat exchanger is caused, by the defrosting flow path mechanism, to pass through the arbitrary heat exchange path from a gas-side end to a liquid-side end of the arbitrary heat exchange path, without flowing into a refrigerant flow diverter. Then, the refrigerant that has passed through the arbitrary heat exchange path is caused, via the refrigerant flow diverter, to pass through another heat exchange path, other than the arbitrary heat exchange path, from a liquid-side end to a gas-side end of the another heat exchange path.
With such control of the flow of the refrigerant by providing the defrosting flow path mechanism and the refrigerant flow diverter, the outdoor heat exchanger can be defrosted with little deterioration in heating performance.